Using the Software Update Service on Mountain Lion Server

The software patching configuration built into most operating systems is configured to open a box at home, join your network and start using the computer right away. As environments grow from homes to offices and then offices grow into enterprises, at some point software updates and patches need to be managed centrally. Mountain Lion, as with its OS X Server predecessors has a Software Update service. The service in the Server app is known as Software Update and from the command line is known as swupdate.
The Software Update service, by default, stores each update in the /var/db/swupd directory. The Software Update servie is actually comprised of three components. The first is an Apache server, invoked by the /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.swupdate.host.plist LaunchDaemon. This LaunchDaemon invokes a httpd process and clients access updates from the server based on a manifest of updates available in the sucatalog. These are synchronized with Apple Software Updates via /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/swupd_syncd, the LaunchDaemon for swupdate at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.swupdate.sync.plist. The Apache version is now Apache/2.2.22.
Clients can be pointed at the server then via a Profile or using the defaults command to edit the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist file. The contents of this file can be read using the following command:
defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist
To point a client to a server via the command line, use a command such as the following:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL http://updates.krypted.com:8088/index.sucatalog
But first, you’ll need to configure and start the Software Update service. Lucky you, it’s quick (although quick in a hurry up and wait kind of way). To get started, open the Server app and then click on the Software Update service.
By default, updates are set to simply mirror the Apple servers, by default, enabling each update that Apple publishes, effectively proxying updates. You can use the Manual button if you would like to configure updates to either manually be approved and manually synchronized or just manually approved but automatically copied from Apple. Otherwise click on the ON button and wait for the updates to cache to simply mirror the Apple servers.
If you would like to manually configure updates, click on the Manual option and then click on the Updates tab.
The first item in the Updates tab is the “Austomatically download new updates” checkbox. This option downloads all of the updates but does not enable them. The Updates tab also displays all available updates. click on one and then click on the cog-wheel icon towards the bottom of the screen to configure its behavior (Download, Enable, Disable, Remove and View Update).
Note: The only option for updates in an Automatic configuration environment is disable.
The service can be managed using serveradmin. To start Software Update, use the start option, followed by the swupdate service identifier:
sudo serveradmin start swupdate
To stop the service, replace start with stop:
sudo serveradmin stop swupdate
To see the status of the service, including the location of updates, the paths to log files, when the service was started and the number of updates running, use the fullstatus option:
sudo serveradmin fullstatus swupdate
The output of which appears as follows:
swupdate:state = "RUNNING"
swupdate:lastChecktime = 2012-08-04 17:04:45 +0000
swupdate:syncStatus = "DONE"
swupdate:syncServiceState = "RUNNING"
swupdate:setStateVersion = 1
swupdate:lastProductsUpdate = 2012-08-04 17:07:10 +0000
swupdate:logPaths:swupdateAccessLog = "/var/log/swupd/swupd_access_log"
swupdate:logPaths:swupdateErrorLog = "/var/log/swupd/swupd_error_log"
swupdate:logPaths:swupdateServiceLog = "/var/log/swupd/swupd_syncd_log"
swupdate:readWriteSettingsVersion = 1
swupdate:checkError = no
swupdate:pluginVers = "10.8.91 (91)"
swupdate:updatesDocRoot = "/var/db/swupd/"
swupdate:hostServiceState = "RUNNING"
swupdate:autoMirror = no
swupdate:numOfEnabledPkg = 0
swupdate:servicePortsAreRestricted = "NO"
swupdate:numOfMirroredPkg = 0
swupdate:autoMirrorOnlyNew = no
swupdate:startTime = 2012-08-04 17:04:45 +0000
swupdate:autoEnable = no
There are also a number of options available using the serveradmin settings that aren’t exposed to the Server app. These include a feature I used to use a lot in the beginning of deployments with poor bandwidth, only mirroring new updates, which is available to swupdate via the autoMirrorOnlyNew option. To configure:
sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:autoMirrorOnlyNew = yes
Also, the service can throttle bandwidth for clients. To use this option, run the following command:
sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:limitBandwidth = yes
And configure bandwidth using the syncBandwidth option, as follows:
sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:syncBandwidth = 10
To automatically sync updates but not enable them (as the checkboxes allow for in the Server app, use the following command:
sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:autoEnable = no
The port (by default 8088) can be managed using the portToUse option, here being used to set it to 80 (clients need this in their catalog URL from here on out):
sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:portToUse = 80
Finally, administrators can purge old packages that are no longer needed using the PurgeUnused option:
sudo serveradmin swupdate:PurgeUnused = yes
One of the biggest drawbacks of the Software Update service in OS X Mountain Lion Server in my opinion is the fact that it does not allow for serving 3rd party packages, from vendors such as Microsoft or Adobe. To provide those vendors with a manifest file and a quick little path option to add those manifest files, a nice middle ground could be found between the Mac App Store and the built in software update options in OS X. But then, we wouldn’t want to make it too easy.
Another issue many have had is that users need administrative passwords to run updates and don’t have them (technically this isn’t a problem with the OS X Server part of the stack, but it’s related). While many options have come up for this, one is to just run the softwareupdate command for clients via ARD or a similar tool.
Many environments have used these issues to look at tools such as reposado or third party patch management tools such as JAMF Software’s the Casper Suite (JAMF also makes a reposado-based VM that mimics the swupdate options), FileWave, Absolute Manage and others. Overall, the update service in Mountain Lion is easily configured, easily managed and easily deployed to clients. It is what it needs to be for a large percentage of OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) Server administrators. This makes it a very viable option and if you’ve already got a Mountain Lion computer sitting around with clients not yet using a centralized update server, well worth enabling.
Note: Managing multiple Software Update Servers has changed in OS X Mountain Lion Server, see my previous post for more information on these changes.

Is there a way to create user groups within Software Update for testing purposes? I want to be able to turn on updates for our IT staff to test and let bake for a few days before turning on to the rest of the clients. I have had to setup two separate SU servers to get around this.

daniel

Hi, should the server itself be set to point to its own update server or will this break the Server Software Update function from retrieving the original updates from Apple?

The server should either be set to point to Apple or if you have multiple I have an article on how to do that as well. But the server should definitely not look at itself. Hope that helps.

Jake Baranski

Is there an option to limit the bandwidth the server is using to download updates from Apple? It might be the but below but I wasn’t sure. Also is there a way to see all available settings options in serveradmin? The man page didn’t really go into a lot of detail.

“sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:syncBandwidth = 10”

Todd

Just an FYI, I have a new Mac Mini server purchased with Mountain Lion Server and the configuration varies from what you have in this guide.

On this server, the “/var/db/swupd/” directory does not exist. All of the Software Update Server files, as well as the catalog are stored in “/Library/Server/Software Update/Data/html/”. Also, “index.sucatalog” does not exist under that name. It is instead named “catalogs.sucatalog”.

Thank you, by the way, for publishing this guide. Otherwise I would not have known to run the “serveradmin” command to discover the existing configuration status.

I did not deliberately set it up like this. One possible explanation is that the first thing I did when I got this Mini was to re-format and reinstall OSX 10.8 so that I could configure the hard drives the way I wanted them.

Kris

Great article and great comments. Thanks everyone. This really helped me. My issue is that I’ve already set this up and it was working fine except that I decided to move my storage location (swupdate:updatesDocRoot) to another volume with more space. The problem is that when I re-enabled the software update service it didn’t find the 100+ GB of data that I’ve already downloaded and it is now re-downloading all of the content again. Is there a way around this? It might be too late for me but it might help someone else.

sashk

I’m wondering if you could point into documentation into option:

swupdate:syncBandwidth

Is it in megabytes, megabits, or any other format? After enabling bandwidth limit to 10 -I’m getting errors downloading updates constantly.